Pulitzer Prize Finalist

New York Times Book Review Top 100 Books of 2024

Explore the “comprehensive and compelling” (Jon Meacham) biography of civil rights leader John Lewis, celebrated as “the conscience of Congress,” through a narrative that weaves together exclusive interviews, never-before-seen FBI files, and documents, offering profound insights into his significant role in American history and the civil rights movement.

Born into poverty in rural Alabama, John Lewis rose to prominence in the civil rights movement, becoming second only to Martin Luther King, Jr. in his contributions. As a Freedom Rider, he played a crucial role in integrating bus stations across the South. Lewis was a prominent leader in the Nashville sit-in movement and delivered a historic speech at the 1963 March on Washington. As the youngest speaker and chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), he transformed it into a major civil rights organization. His legacy endures through the harrowing events at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, where he survived a brutal beating on “Bloody Sunday.”

David Greenberg’s “authoritative…definitive biography” (David J. Garrow, Pulitzer Prize–winning author) follows Lewis’s journey beyond the civil rights era, highlighting his leadership in the Voter Education Project, where he helped enroll millions of African American voters across the South. This book uncovers the little-known story of his ascent in politics, first locally in Atlanta and then as a respected member of Congress. As part of the Democratic leadership, Lewis was admired on both sides of the aisle for his unwavering dedication to nonviolent integration and justice.

Rich with new insights, Greenberg’s work captures John Lewis’s influential career through documents from numerous archives, interviews with 275 people who knew him, and rare footage of Lewis speaking from his hospital bed after Selma. John Lewis offers unparalleled details about his personal and professional relationships and stands as the definitive biography of a man whose heroism during the civil rights movement paved the way for a new era of freedom in America.

The most powerful political tool of the modern presidency is control of the message and the image.

In Republic of Spin―a vibrant history covering more than one hundred years of politics―presidential historian David Greenberg recounts the rise of the White House spin machine, from Teddy Roosevelt to Barack Obama. His sweeping, startling narrative takes us behind the scenes to see how the tools and techniques of image making and message craft work. We meet Woodrow Wilson convening the first White House press conference, Franklin Roosevelt huddling with his private pollsters, Ronald Reagan’s aides crafting his nightly news sound bites, and George W. Bush staging his “Mission Accomplished” photo-op. We meet, too, the backstage visionaries who pioneered new ways of gauging public opinion and mastering the media―figures like George Cortelyou, TR’s brilliantly efficient press manager; 1920s ad whiz Bruce Barton; Robert Montgomery, Dwight Eisenhower’s canny TV coach; and of course the key spinmeisters of our own times, from Roger Ailes to David Axelrod.

Greenberg also examines the profound debates Americans have waged over the effect of spin on our politics. Does spin help our leaders manipulate the citizenry? Or does it allow them to engage us more fully in the democratic project? Exploring the ideas of the century’s most incisive political critics, from Walter Lippmann and H. L. Mencken to Hannah Arendt and Stephen Colbert, Republic of Spin illuminates both the power of spin and its limitations―its capacity not only to mislead but also to lead.

The austere president who presided over the Roaring Twenties and whose conservatism masked an innovative approach to national leadership

He was known as “Silent Cal.” Buttoned up and tight-lipped, Calvin Coolidge seemed out of place as the leader of a nation plunging headlong into the modern era. His six years in office were a time of flappers, speakeasies, and a stock market boom, but his focus was on cutting taxes, balancing the federal budget, and promoting corporate productivity. “The chief business of the American people is business,” he famously said.

But there is more to Coolidge than the stern capitalist scold. He was the progenitor of a conservatism that would flourish later in the century and a true innovator in the use of public relations and media. Coolidge worked with the top PR men of his day and seized on the rising technologies of newsreels and radio to bring the presidency into the lives of ordinary Americans―a path that led directly to FDR’s “fireside chats” and the expert use of television by Kennedy and Reagan. At a time of great upheaval, Coolidge embodied the ambivalence that many of his countrymen felt. America kept “cool with Coolidge,” and he returned the favor.

How an image-obsessed president transformed the way we think about politics and politicians.

To his conservative supporters in 1940s southern California, Richard Nixon was a populist everyman; to liberal intellectuals of the 1950s, he was “Tricky Dick,” a devious manipulator; to 1960s radicals, a shadowy conspirator; to the Washington press corps, a pioneering spin doctor; to his loyal Middle Americans, a victim of liberal hatred; to recent historians, an unlikely liberal. Nixon’s Shadow rediscovers these competing images of the protean Nixon, showing how each was created and disseminated in American culture and how Nixon’s tinkering with his own image often backfired. During Nixon’s long tenure on the national stage―and through the succession of “new Nixons” so brilliantly described here―Americans came to realize how thoroughly politics relies on manipulation. Since Nixon, it has become impossible to discuss politics without asking: What is the politician’s “real” character? How authentic or inauthentic is he? What image is he trying to project? More than what Nixon did, this fascinating book reveals what Nixon meant.